ng aid--actually?"

The sarcasm was not lost on Jack. But he ignored it. Finding he still
held the hand she had extended when urging him to follow her, he
squeezed it.

"You're--you're fine," he said, enthusiastically.

Rafaela tossed her head, smiling in superior fashion.

"You are not a very accomplished courtier, Mr. Jack Hampton," she
said, withdrawing her hand.

Jack would have protested. He was rapidly falling under the spell of
her charm. But she halted him with an imperious gesture.

"We are wasting precious time," she said. "Come." Then, turning to
Donna Ana, she said sharply: "You will stay here until I return. And
if you betray me--" Again she made a threatening gesture, and again
the old duenna cowered. Thereupon, the girl hastened from the room and
Jack followed.

Up the spiral stone stairway of the tower ran Rafaela, passing the
first landing where burned an electric light. Jack was close at her
heels. At length they reached the top landing, and stood before the
single door there. It was of stout oak, heavy and ponderous.

"This is your father's room," whispered Rafaela.

So near to a successful conclusion of his adventure, Jack's heart beat
so rapidly that once again he experienced that sensation of
suffocation which had seized him on landing from the airplane.

He tried the door knob. The barrier was locked.

"Locked," he whispered. "What shall we do?"

In the dim light on the landing, they stared at each other in dismay.
Here was a contingency which had occurred to neither.

The whispering, the careful trying of the door, the sound of their
footsteps--these had aroused Mr. Hampton from his reading on the other
side of the door.

"Who's there?" he called sharply.

Jack set his mouth close to the keyhole.

"Dad," he whispered tensely. "It's Jack. Don't make a noise. I've come
to rescue you."

There was a moment of silence, then the sound of rapid footsteps
crossing the room.

"Jack?" Mr. Hampton also had stooped to the keyhole. "It can't be. Yet
that voice! My boy, my boy. But how in the world did you come here?"

"Too long to tell, Dad," whispered Jack. "But have you the key to this
door?"

"Key? No."

"Then," said Jack, despairingly, "it looks as if we were balked at the
end. This door is too stout to break down without bringing the enemy
on us. It's thick and bound with iron straps besides."

"Who is with you?"

"Bob. No. I mean Miss Calomares. She's helping me."

"This